Belgian GP Friday Arrows notes

The sun was in full blaze as track activities began today with the first practice session for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix. Spa is the longest circuit on the Grand Prix calendar at an amazing 4.329 miles long, and although both Orange Arrows drivers didn't complete as many practice laps as they had hoped, Jos Verstappen finished the session in 7th and Pedro de la Rosa in 20th.

Pedro de la Rosa:
"Well we went out in the first session and we had a hydraulics problem so I could only really do one run before the car stopped on the circuit, and there was a lot of work to do for the second session so we only got half an hour out on the track which is not enough for this circuit. Nevertheless, we made a lot of changes to the car to find a good balance. The car was quite good with old tyres and high fuel so we'll just have to wait and see how the car reacts with new tyres tomorrow. At the moment we have a little bit too much understeer on the slow corners which is slowing us down, but overall I'm reasonably happy. Spa is similar to Monaco in a way in that you just need as many practice laps as possible and at the end of the session I managed some good laps. If you miss both sessions of the first day you have a lot of work to do to catch up which is where I am, but the car is good on high speed corners and we just have to find a bit more balance on the slower parts".

Jos Verstappen:
"I expected the car to be quicker to start off with but we had to change quite a lot on the car to get rid of the understeer. Also, I don't think my first tyre choice was the right one, so we changed the tyres and the car felt a lot better, but there were a few electrical problems with the car as well so we lost about half an hour in the second session. Obviously we lost some time too by setting up the car so we have a lot of work to do overnight to make the car competitive for tomorrow and to do well in qualifying".